About

Welcome to the second Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival, a feast of all thing literary in this most beautiful of all towns!

There must be something literary in the air of Bury St Edmunds. Many talented authors were either born here or now live here and we are delighted that many of them are appearing at this year’s festival.

These include Nicola Upson, celebrated author of a series of crime novels whose main character is Josephine Tey – one of the leading authors of Britain’s Golden Age of crime writing. Her novel The Death of Lucy Kyte was inspired by the Red Barn murder and she will be talking about this and her other work in Moyse’s Hall which houses a book covered in the murderer’s skin.

We also have popular Young Adult author Josh Winning and the critically acclaimed Sam Byers, author of Perfidious Albion set in a fictional town called Edmundsbury! Like Nicola, both Josh & Sam were born here, as was historian Francis Young.

We are hoping to uncover even more local talent with our popular Short Story Competition so if you are, or if you know, a young budding author, why not get them to enter?

East Anglia is, of course, home to many wonderful writers including the peerless Wendy Cope and Georgina Harding both of whom grace our Festival this year, while from further afield we have the immensely popular Ruth Hogan.

The Festival Team

Gill Adams

Jackie Burnett

Clare Dawson

Eileen Dreyer

Diane Hind

Susan Pocklington

Julia Wakelam

Message from our Patrons, Mike & Judy Spenser-Morris

“We were honoured to be asked to be patrons of the inaugural
Bury St Edmunds Literature Festival in 2017 and having seen the remarkable
success of that event, we were delighted when invited to support the Festival
again this year.

As avid readers, we feel a particular affinity with the
Festival’s desire to bring so many wonderful authors to Bury St Edmunds to talk
about their work. Our incredible town, that has such a depth of history, seems
to be the perfect setting for a Literature Festival and we thank you
wholeheartedly for your incredible efforts in again bringing it to
fruition.

We wish you – and all those who have put so much effort into arranging the event – huge success. May there be many more BSE Literature Festivals in the future.”